The invention relates generally to an elevator system, to controlling elevators and to directing passengers in connection with an elevator system.
Nowadays elevators are typically used as a group of a number of elevators e.g. in high-rise buildings or in buildings or vessels in which large amounts of passengers are transported. These types of vessels are, for instance, passenger ships, such as cruise liners. These comprise various challenging situations from the viewpoint of the operation of the elevators. Typically these types of situations are those in which a large crowd of people wants to move from a certain deck/floor to a large number of different floors/decks in a short space of time. This is the type of situation e.g. when passengers arrive on board a vessel and when they move from the entrance deck to the cabins. On the other hand, a corresponding situation is e.g. dinnertime on cruise liners, when a large crowd of people wants to move to the dining room, which in large vessels can comprise a number of floors and have a capacity of several thousand people. In very large cruise liners the capacity can even exceed 5,000 people. In this case, on the one hand it is desired to get elevator users effectively transferred to the destination they want and also on the other hand to utilize the available elevator capacity to its maximum. The available elevator groups, each consisting of a number of elevators, can be situated at a distance from each other, in which case there is often a danger in peak traffic situations that the capacity of different elevator groups will be distributed unevenly, and that it will not be possible to utilize their capacity maximally.
Even if it were planned that passengers would use two different elevator groups, passengers may collect to use mainly only one elevator group, which could cause congestions. The movements and destination floors of users are difficult to estimate reliably with prior-art solutions, so that predicting the utilization rate of elevators is awkward.
On the other hand, during quieter times it is not always possible to control the elevators of an elevator group in the most efficient way, optimizing the energy needed for conveying passengers. This is because, among other things, it has typically not been possible in the system to monitor the numbers of passengers waiting for an elevator on the different floors. On the one hand the system has not been able to direct passengers to the correct elevator of an elevator group in a sufficiently effective manner, and on the other hand it has not been possible in the system to take into account situations in which a passenger, or passenger group, that has given an elevator call has become tired of waiting for the elevator and chosen the stairs, in which case the elevator might unnecessarily stop at that floor from which the elevator call was given. Unnecessary stopping and starting, especially upwards, consumes energy, the efficient use of which is, of course, one goal of a modern elevator system.
The aim of the invention is thus to achieve a new type of solution, by means of which the problems of prior art can be avoided. One aim of the invention is to achieve a solution, by means of which, by utilizing the elevator system efficiently, a large crowd of passengers can be moved by minimizing the call time and/or the travel time. On the other hand, another aim is to direct passengers efficiently to the different elevators of an elevator system or to different transport appliances. Further, another aim according to the invention is to achieve a solution, by means of which an elevator system can be controlled in an energy-efficient manner at least when passenger amounts are small.